UConn's Kemba Walker was announced the winner of Bob Cousy Award, given annually by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame to the nation’s top point guard.

Walker beat out Jimmer Fredette of BYU and Nolan Smith of Duke among others for the award, which is given out by the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

“I am thrilled that Kemba has been named the winner of the Bob Cousy Award. He is having one of the great seasons ever in college basketball history,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said in a statement. “Beyond the stats, game-winning shots and accolades, he epitomizes the leadership that a great point guard must have and what he has done to lead our young team to a Big East Championship and to a spot in the Final Four has been unforgettable.”

Virginia Commonwealth gave up 34 percent shooting from long range all season long. Over the last five games, that number's down to 23 percent.

The Rams’ three-point shooting has spiked as well -- going from 36 percent during the year to 44 percent in the tournament. They're shooting threes more often in the They're shooting threes more often in the tournament, as well.

On offense, the spikes have been from Bradford Burgess (who has gone from shooting 40 percent to 59 percent), Jamie Skeen (40 to 50), and Brandon Rozzell (39 to 49). And if you drop Burgess's opening round 0-for-4, he's 13-of-18 (72 percent) from deep since.

In three games against Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals, Kemba Walker was held below his season averages in field-goal shooting (34.0 percent), three-point shooting (18.7 percent) and scoring (18.3 points per game).

The secret to their success, Pitino says, was keeping him from his comfort zone.

“We start with the theory that if you let a great guard get to the middle of the floor, you're going to have trouble,” Pitino said. “So the first thing we did was try to keep him out of the middle as much as possible.”

It's almost inevitable that Walker will make plays. But Pitino said the Cards concentrated on making him work for everything.

“We know we're not going to stop him to a certain degree, although we had success against him,” Pitino said. “We just want him to shoot a low percentage. So we trap him out of our zone, we trap him on pick and rolls, we switch and then come back and trap him but don't let him roam free in the middle.”

Shirley Barnes told The Daily Tar Heel that her son has goals that he wants to fulfill.

The North Carolina freshman forward said after losing 76-69 to Kentucky on Sunday in the Elite Eight that he felt just like he did three years ago, when a last-second shot gave Iowa’s Marshalltown the 51-50 win against Barnes-led Ames in the state playoffs when he was a sophomore.

“That hurt for three months,” his mom, Shirley Barnes, said on Tuesday. “And that was the last time he lost. He has goals and I think he wants to fulfill those goals.”

When asked if he had played his final game in a North Carolina uniform, Barnes gave no indication which way he was leaning, only that he was living in the moment that visibly consumed him.

“I’m not thinking about the NBA,” he said.

Shirley Barnes said when the time is right, her son will make his decision.

“Harrison needs to heal from this loss,” she said. “We haven’t really talked about it, honestly. It’s not pressing to us. It’s what it is.”

Duke guard Kyrie Irving is projected as the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft if he decides to leave school early.

This weekend, the 19-year-old Irving will travel home to New Jersey to discuss his options with his family.

But no one should expect a quick answer.

"Right now, we're going to do our due diligence and privately discuss it as a family," Drederick Irving, Kyrie's father, said Wednesday. "It could be a month or it could be a week. It's not going to be quickly."

Irving said after the Arizona game that the decision remained uncertain. On Wednesday, his father echoed those comments, calling this the biggest decision of Kyrie's life.

"Right now," Drederick Irving said, "Kyrie's focus is on being a student and doing well in the classroom."

When former Kentucky center DeMarcus Cousin’s mind wanders to last year's dismal 73-66 loss to West Virginia in the NCAA Tournament's East Regional final, Cousins tosses and turns as images of missed shots and missed opportunities replay in his mind.

"When I think about it, I can't sleep at night because we should have won that game," said Cousins, now a rookie center for the NBA's Sacramento Kings.

Even at 18, Cousins understood he was part of something special.

"Yes, I wish I was still there," Cousins said. "College life was fun."